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Movies & TV News & Features

What to watch on Netflix Canada in April 2019

WHAT WE CAN’T WAIT TO WATCH

Our Planet

If you’ve got a 4K television, it’s about to get a proper workout with this new high-definition documentary series hosted by veteran nature presenter David Attenborough. (Fun fact: different regions get different narrators. It’s Salma Hayek in Latin America, and Penélope Cruz in Spain.) This one focuses on the interconnectivity of habitats and biomes around the globe, with eight episodes featuring 4K images never captured before by human cinematographers. Executive producer Alastair Fothergill has some experience with these sorts of things, having made The Blue Planet and Planet Earth for the BBC, and African Cats, Chimpanzee, Monkey Kingdom and this year’s Penguins for Disneynature. See if you can blast through all eight episodes on Earth Day. April 5

Unicorn Store

Brie Larson’s directorial debut sets itself somewhere between Stranger Than Fiction and Mr. Magorium’s Wonder Emporium, spinning a tale of a young woman adrift in her own life – until Samuel L. Jackson shows up and offers her the chance to buy an actual, literal unicorn, the kind she used to dream about as a child. It gets quirkier from there, but we’re willing to bet now that we’ve seen Larson and Jackson smash Skrulls in Captain Marvel, it plays a little differently than it did at TIFF a couple of years ago. April 5

The Oath 

Ike Barinholtz (The Mindy Project, the Neighbors movies, last year’s Blockers) makes his directorial debut with this barbed satire about a nice progressive couple, played by himself and Tiffany Haddish, enduring an awkward Thanksgiving with his conservative family. The day also happens to be the deadline for citizens to sign a totally optional fealty pledge to the current president. Yeah, it’s about Trump, but it’s also a sharp allegory for the fracturing of politics everywhere in the world and about how we become more entrenched in our positions when we feel those we love the most aren’t listening to us. Also starring Carrie Brownstein, Jay Duplass, Jon Barinholtz, Nora Dunn, Billy Magnussen and scene-stealer John Cho as a federal agent who would really, really love it if everybody stopped yelling for a minute. April 8

The Silence

In a world devastated by sound-seeking alien beasts, a family’s secret weapon turns out to be their deaf daughter, who’s been… hey, wait, isn’t this the premise of A Quiet Place? Well, it is, but Tim Lebbon’s 2015 novel has roughly the same concept, which led to Annabelle director John R. Leonetti giving us this film, starring Sabrina’s Kiernan Shipka (who learned to sign for the role), Stanley Tucci, Miranda Otto and John Corbett. “Stanley Tucci can’t raise his voice for an entire movie” is a wonderful idea on its own, so we are going to watch this the second it drops. April 12

Someone Great

Netflix doesn’t have the greatest track record when it comes to original rom-coms, but the cast of Someone Great has piqued our curiosity. Music journalist Jenny (Gina Rodriguez) lands a dream job at a big magazine, but her long-term boyfriend (Atlanta’s Lakeith Stanfield) doesn’t want to go long distance and dumps her. That sets the stage for a road trip with her two besties, played by DeWanda Wise (She’s Gotta Have It) and Brittany Snow (Pitch Perfect). RuPaul turns up as a psychic somewhere along the way and Questlove cameos. April 19

Bonding

Here’s a fun-looking twist on the gay BFF story: a newly out gay guy (Brendan Scannell) reconnects with a grad school friend (Zoe Levin) who happens to be one of New York City’s top dominatrixes and becomes her assistant. The series won the best episodic series prize at Los Angeles’s Outfest following its premiere at Cannes last year. Writer/director/showrunner Rightor Doyle, who co-stars in the HBO series Barry, based the show on his experience working as a dominatrix’s assistant when he first moved to New York and needed cash. April 24

Burning Lee Chang Dong

Well Go USA

Yoo Ah-in (left), Jeon Jong-soo and Steven Yeun become entangled in Lee Chang-dong’s excellent thriller, Burning.

SOLID BETS

Burning

Possibly the best film from 2018 is one that leaves you as rattled and uncertain as its protagonist. Lee Chang-dong’s masterfully dark South Korean thriller is about a wannabe writer named Jongsu (Yoo Ah-in) who hangs on the edge in a love triangle, competing with a wealthy playboy (Steven Yuen). Class plays a pivotal, prickly and barely spoken role in a soulful and hypnotic drama about a young man who would spend plenty time on Reddit in the West. He obsessively seeks answers but has no way of grasping control over his own narrative. April 29

Boyz N The Hood

The movies that followed in its wake – Juice, Menace II Society and New Jersey Drive – couldn’t match the insight and soul that infused Boyz N The Hood. John Singleton became the youngest ever Oscar nominee for best director (not to mention the first Black nominee in that category) for his film debut. The coming-of-age tale follows young Black men either getting by or looking for a way out from South Central and the gang-violence riddling its streets. The movie has laudable performances for days but Ice Cube’s charismatic and mesmerizing screen debut as the hard-edged but soft-hearted Doughboy left a lasting legacy. April 1

Hulk

I actually really like Ang Lee’s Hulk (*ducks*). The unfairly maligned movie pre-dated the Marvel Cinematic Universe formula and frustrated fans with its ponderous take on the comic book lore as Greek tragedy, which is exactly what makes it so beautiful. Lee delivers the necessary superhero theatrics in a fun and imaginative showdown between the Hulk and the military in the Nevada dessert, but it’s the far-fetched Oedipal crisis between Eric Bana’s Bruce Banner and Nick Nolte as the Zeus-like father that somehow lingers as both silly and elegant. April 3

List of new titles available in April, by date:

TV SHOWS

Available in April

Chambers 

April 1

Monty Python Best Bits (Mostly) (season 1)

Monty Python: The Meaning Of Live

Ultraman

April 2

Kevin Hart: Irresponsible

April 4

Star (season 3)

April 5

Chilling Adventures Of Sabrina (part 2 )

Our Planet

Persona: Collection 

Roman Empire: Caligula: The Mad Emperor

Spirit Riding Free (season 8)

Tijuana 

April 8

The Oath

April 9

Trolls: The Beat Goes On! (season 6) 

April 10

You vs. Wild

April 11

Black Summer

April 12

Huge In France 

Mighty Little Bheem

Special

April 15

Luis Miguel – The Series (season 1)

No Good Nick 

April 16

Super Monsters Furever Friends

April 18

My First First Love

April 19

Brené Brown: The Call To Courage

Cuckoo (season 5)

Lunatics

Rilakkuma And Kaoru

Samantha! (season 2)

April 22

Imposters (season 2)

Pinky Malinky (part 2)

Selection Day

April 23

I Think You Should Leave with Tim Robinson

April 24

Bonding

April 26

The Protector (season 2)

ReMastered: Devil At The Crossroads

She-Ra And The Princesses Of Power (season 2)

Street Food 

Yankee

April 30

Anthony Jeselnik: Fire In The Maternity Ward

Baki (part 2)

Ingress: The Animation 

MOVIES

April 1

American Psycho

Annie

Boyz N The Hood

Dance With Me

Fifty Shades Darker

The Grudge 2

Les Misérables    

Memoirs Of A Geisha

Resident Evil: Extinction

Sleight

Snatched

Split

The Spy Who Fell To Earth

UltraViolet

April 2

Sleepless

April 3

Billy Elliot

Hulk

Suzzanna: Buried Alive

April 4

Ek Ladki Ko Dekha Toh Aisa Laga

Pope Francis: A Man Of His Word

April 5

Unicorn Store

April 12

A Land Imagined 

Colette

The Perfect Date

The Silence

What They Had

Who Would You Take To A Deserted Island? 

April 15

Happy Feet Two

April 17

Homecoming: A Film By Beyoncé

April 19

A Fortunate Man

Homecoming: A Film By Beyoncé

Life Itself

Mile 22

Music Teacher

Regression

The Ruthless

Someone Great 

That Awkward Moment

April 20

Grass Is Greener

Weed The People

April 21

Brampton’s Own

The Last Resort

Paper Year

Sheikh Jackson

April 22

Border

April 23

Air Strike

April 28

Little Women 

April 29

Burning

Wonder Woman

LAST CALL

TV series and movies leaving Netflix this month.

April 1

Downton Abbey (seasons 1-6)

The Gift

April 3

Dawn Of The Dead

April 7

Star Wars: The Clone Wars (seasons 1-5)

Star Wars: The Clone Wars: The Lost Missions

April 21

Captain Phillips

April 24

Big Eyes

Captain America: The Winter Soldier

April 29

Ocean’s Eleven

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